Wannabe corporate bosses sucking the hope out of us all

John Parker
Editor
John hails from South Australia where he entered the newspaper game as the age of 16 as a casual copy boy. He has worked in most areas of newspapers and in online before becoming Chronicle editor in 2014.

WE are all being robbed by corporate Australia, but it's not just money they're stealing ... it's hope.

Australia is largely run by "career" executives who are sucking the life out of the economy and society itself.

Most of them have little skill other than adding up and subtracting, because we've somehow bought the argument that the immediate numbers are all that really matter.

But you know what? People matter, too. So does society.

Once upon a time it was different. People worked their way through an industry before taking key jobs - now they don't.

They just move from job to job - pillaging, toecutting, bleeding society dry.

They do a degree in this or that, then another one, save companies some money on pencils (which invariably are unusable), get promoted, come up with an "idea" (which often fails long-term) get promoted again, get a reputation and end up running the show.

And it's all done with fast talking, serial nodding and alleged expertise in the dark arts of "marketing" or "financial services" - vague titles that the equally incompetent executives above them are too insecure to ask about.

The concept of understanding what makes an industry tick, the craft, the skill, the nuances, the target market, is largely lost for the sake of a big, homogenous porridge of what will become long-term shareholder losses.

Downsizing, streamlining, productivity advances and "better nett results going forward" are all key expressions they use to rob not only employees, but the paying public, of quality.

The first port of call for slowing businesses now is letting people go.

But the short-term gains of the corporate powerbrokers will eventually be revealed for what they are.

If we continue cutting staff to save a dollar here and there, eventually there will be no money to be spent in the community - and when we finally decide it was a mistake, the skillset required to rebuild will no longer exist. And the quality of what is being produced now will diminish rapidly, delivering an easily pre-determined result.

The other factor of this is hope. In conversations with people from all manner of industries I hear of the axe of redundancy hanging threateningly over heads.